I like movies.  I like golf.  I like entertainment.  And I like the marketing.  What with the Ryder Cup and a bunch of shows starting up, the TV has been on in our house a lot more in recent days.  And as I watched the new shows and the inevitable “commercial breaks” came by, I noticed I did not disengage as quickly when a movie trailer was shown as I did when an ad was aired.  Hmmm??

As movies are an interest of mine, I understood my waiting to see what was coming.  As I started to think about it, I was a little stunned.  I knew it was a trailer because it was screened in wide screen - with the black space at the top and bottom of the screen.  So as a person who likes movies, I was primed and I took the bait. Well the trailer ended and you know what? The very next ad was shown in wide screen as well and and I stayed engaged until I realised it was not a movie trailer and it was definitely not a product I had the remotest interest in.

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Last week the NY Times ran an article Bridging the Gap - the Sequel about the failed efforts of Hollywood & Silicon Valley to bridge the cultural divide. It highlighted the movie business and its historical (hysterical?) requirements for cash and not equity, which reminds me of a few movie ventures I have been involved with over the last few months.

“Last year (Daniel Scheinman, a senior vice president atCisco Systems) met with an affluent film producer who marveled at the extraordinary riches afforded to Google executives. Mr. Scheinman told him that most got wealthy accepting stock options instead of million-dollar salaries. When Mr. Scheinman asked whether the producer would ever accept equity instead of cash if they worked together, the moviemaker sniffed.

“I fly a G4,” he told Mr. Scheinman, referring to the Gulfstream jet he owned. “How far do you think my G4 will go on stock options? I need cash.””

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No.1: Chris Brown sings Kiss Kiss.  The record labels should listen to Chris Brown - KISS = KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.

No 2: Listen and give people what they keep telling you they want - don’t force them to go to the P2P channel to get singles

No. 3: Look at other industries and succesful service companies to see what kind of experience they offer.  Think YouTube 1-click usability.

No. 4: Do any of the senior industry people stand in their consumers shoes?  Like slum-lord’s sentences - they should be forced to try and consume their product like we do for a week or a month and then lets see how quickly the biz changes.  Don’t get pissed at Steve Jobs because he makes it simple - join him and make the music experience simple and fun.

Why the rant?

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I have been working with some great people as I build Speakery, my new company.  I have not actively launched Speakery with the whole Social Media splash - I have been focusing on the prospects and clients that have been working with me.  In thinking about social media based marketing , I have from time to time worked on sections of the yet to be launched Speakery website (which I hope to launch in the next few weeks time permitting).  I have had numerous conversations with Chris Abraham and Mark Harrison over at Abraham Harrison’s Marketing Conversations  over the last year.

When I started Speakery in September, I began putting together the Speakery philosophy.  At the core of a number of my discussions with clients has been the power and effectiveness of online word-of-mouth marketing.  I have shared the philosophy with prospects and clients and with some of my affiliate partners such as Chris and Mark.  Chris suggested sharing some of my thoughts here and on Marketing Conversations.

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A ton has been written this week about Starbucks and their first ever decline in customer traffic. Let me say up front that I am not a huge fan of Starbucks coffee. Seni Thomas has an interesting post over at DailyFix and John Moore and Paul Williams over at Brand Autopsy have an excellent line up on the issue. Yes - no question Starbucks went away from their core business. They diversified. They had to. They grew - would have been stupid not to. (Starbucks hyper growth seems similar to what the Gap did before they experienced their downturn in customers- they also seemingly had a store on every corner and they did stray from their tried and tested. Starbucks grew and continued to grow - in size and in the experience they offered. The bigger question for me is whether Starbucks is experiencing what the Gap faced: a consumer that aged and as it did, that consumer’s tastes changed. When The Gap went back to its core - their customers had far more choices and were buying different things. But I digress!

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What makes people choose to be in certain communities; choose to engage, or choose to activate or become buyers or consumers is in my opinion based on psychographic elements that are keys to growing audiences beyond the bucketed core demographic of say 18-34 year olds with a cross reference to a marketers product - say for example car buyers.  Understanding target customers’ attitudes and behaviors towards social media platforms,and most importantly their relationships with and through those platforms is critical to achieving marketing success through social media. What you hope to achieve, how you get there and what strategy you use to build engagement and conversion goes way beyond how that community engages with a single technology or single social media channel.

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I ahve read a number of articles recently in MSM such as WSJ, NY Times, AdAge and at conferences and on the web regarding measurement by publishers and vendors. And with no set standards and varied ways of measuring as all and sundry keep pointing out, changes are happening and there is more to come.It is inconceivable that in this day and age there are no standard metrics online - a medium that ostensibly does leave a footprint for tracking. It is hard to understand how a vendor and a publisher can have vastly different numbers when calculating (and in some cases simply adding) online activity such as clickthroughs.

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Recently a lot has been written about agency/client relationship turnover. Agencies (PR and Advertising) fill an important role of connecting a brand to an audience. Okay I’ve stated the obvious. I believe our world needs to move to one where the agency fills a role of “Brand Fiduciary.” A Fiduciary (definition below) is someone or an entity that is hired in a position of trust with a responsibility to act:

• with the highest degree of care
• the utmost good faith
• in the best interests of the client (not exploit the position of trust for personal gain or put self interest ahead of the client’s interests)

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An old adage says if you want something to be good fast and cheap, keep dreaming. You can have 2 out of 3. If you want it:

• Good and cheap - it won’t be fast
• Fast and good - it won’t be cheap
• Fast and cheap - it won’t be good

Yeah – you get what you pay for! In Is Free Good? by Matthew Hurst, he makes two points – free does not necessarily equate to good or consistent, and that free often means no or limited service. Could not agree more.

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